WALTZING IN THE NEW YEAR WITH THE (DECEASED) OLD HOME SINGERS. Pts. 1-2

*Originally written on New Year's Day, 2016

As you can plainly see from the date of this story, it is New Year’s Day. And it occurred to me in the past several hours to ‘ring in the New Year’ differently than I’d ever rung it in before.

It so happens that I recently purchased a wonderful family heirloom. A cousin made me aware of another relative who owned an Edison Amberola, (similar to a Victrola); which surprisingly enough, my grandfather owned a very long time ago, and which ultimately ‘fell into the hands’ of my great uncle. If that were not enough, the latter of the two played this early version of a record player for my mother and me over half a century ago. (Needless to say, I was still in high school at the time).

Not only was I fortunate enough to purchase the Amberola, but my great uncle’s tailor-made cabinet, and over a 100 audio cylinders came with it.

Not ones to celebrate with alcoholic spirits or by surrounding ourselves with dozens of inebriated celebrants, like so many earlier New Year’s Eves, we…stayed home.

And like so many years prior to the one which we were now ending, I turned on the television, clicked my way through the channels, and thought to myself,

“Well now, let me see. We have Jennifer Lopez from New York City singing and dancing her way into our hearts, and wearing… the most bizarre gold ‘shimmery’ excuse for an outfit; which left little to be imagined.

And I said to myself,

“Self, there has to be something a bit more visually moral upon which to focus this New Year’s Eve.” And I summarily turned to a channel featuring Mariah Carey in Los Angeles.

Right there ‘in front of God and everybody’ Mariah strutted and shimmered and sang her way into some people’s hearts; albeit not my own.

(and)

Speaking aloud to no one in particular, (though my wife was seated just steps away), I exclaimed,

“Old Mariah must have bought her outfit at the same store where Jennifer Lopez shops.” (For I kid you not, their ‘lack of clothing’ was virtually identical, and they might easily have sung a duet; had they not been on opposite sides of the country).

Pt. 2

And with this unwelcome development, I aimed the channel changer at my wide screen T.V. and clicked the scantily dressed, slightly past prime time performer into oblivion.

Did I mention I had a backup plan? (Well, I did). No, I hadn’t changed my mind. Alcoholic spirits and the comradery of wild celebrants still hadn’t worked their way up the list of my priorities for the evening.

You see, in the past few days I came across one of the 4 minute audio wonders which had as its title, “Auld Lang Syne,” (by Robert Burns), and of course, I connected that old ballad with the approaching New Year’s celebration. Never a backup plan at all, for my decision to slip said cylinder on the roller, turn the crank (for what seemed like an eternity), and lower the needle had been premeditated.

As the notes of that old familiar ballad began to waft their way across the room, and as those dearly departed voices of those dearly departed singers rose in unison, I invited my wife to her feet. And taking her in my arms, we waltzed ourselves into the New Year.

By now, I had clicked the television back on to watch the Times Square ball drop, (and drop it did).

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

and

…1

And it suddenly occurred to me that my wife and I had been accompanied by a musical instrument purchased in 1917; (at Sears & Roebuck). Exactly 100 years prior to the New Year which she and I were at that very moment celebrating with one another.

Afterward

There was a time when these dearly departed, disembodied voices owned physiologies of their own in which they resided, and lived, and loved, and moved, and breathed; when they were, and we were not. 

I mused it was possible that in the entire world at that moment, no other couple had chosen a century old Blue Amberol audio cylinder with the music of “Old Lang Syne,” as sung by “The Old Home Singers,” to waltz in the New Year.

I like to think that my wife and I were in better company ringing in the New Year with the archaic voices of “The Old Home Singers,” (God rest their souls) than we would have been with Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, or any of those other so-called recording artists of our time and ‘culture.’

(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 40. By William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending.

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